Antarctica was
the last continent in the world to be discovered. Antarctica is a polar
environment. It is the fifth largest continent in the world and also
it is the coldest place on Earth.

Antarctica is very different
from the other polar environment being the Arctic. The Arctic is mostly
sea surrounded on its edges by the northern parts of Asia, Europe and North
America. By contrast the Antarctic is mostly land, covered with permanent
ice and isolated from all other continents by thousands of kilometres.
The nearest land is the tip of South America which is 970km from the Antarctic
Peninsula. Also Antarctica is much colder then the Arctic. This is
due to the very high winds which sometimes get up to 240km per hour. The
highest temperature so far recorded is -10 degress C in the mildest region.

In this session topic you will learn about what the continent of Antarctica is like. By the end of this session you will know about the history of Antarctica and should be able to locate the Australian bases. Make sure you carefully read all the information before each activity.

What
you need to do...

* To complete this session,
you need to work through each activity listed below.

Locate the file, "Blank Map"
on the Junior School Server. This is a map of Antarctica. PRINT
out 2 copies of this file. Add the following features to one of
your maps and use light colouring when complete.

The Australian BASES,

The OCEANS and SEAS,

The SOUTH POLE.

Visit the Antarctica
- Virtual Tour website. Read the information in the site, especially
the section titled, "Some Brief History". Within this section, click
on the link to the "poles page" and make notes in your SOSE book
about the 3 different poles.

Visit the Antarctica
Online website and view some of the statistics about Antarctica.
Use this information to create a graph which compares the area of Antarctica
to Australia, Canada and USA. Use a Clarisworks Spreadsheet to table
the data, then make a pie-chart. Ask your teacher for assistance if necessary.